


Fifty-move rule

by Links6



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Chess Metaphors, Deception, F/M, Gaslighting, Izaya is a troll, Manipulative Relationship, Set in the future, So Wrong It's Right, Strategy & Tactics, Unhealthy Relationships, immune to gaslighting, immune to manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 06:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17017137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Links6/pseuds/Links6
Summary: You have fifty moves to win... or end in a draw.Izaya knows this by heart and revels in the chase... he just hadn't met a match yet.





	Fifty-move rule

 

Izaya Orihara is a master of chess.

 

Of course, this had been established even in pre-school.

 

Surpassing his classmates by miles, the best high he found was in the frustration in adults as he grew.

 

In middle-school it had become an addiction.

 

By highschool he had grown tired of it.

 

And, as he'd learnt to do, when you grow tired of something, you grown into something else.

 

Ironically, he had met her, all those years ago.

 

He teased her, engraved his charisma into her soul. He left and didn't even remember her name once he'd left.

 

After all, the world had become a mass of intrigue and the darkness had started to dig their claws in him at that point.

 

She had smiled and carried on, filling the holes of her self-esteem with lies, then truth then wisdom.

 

He carried on too, filling his holes with truth and pain and deception and kept deceiving himself that those holes were being filled after all.

 

Six years and forty moves later, he meets her again.

 

She still liked her milkshakes with rainbow sprinkles, though her taste in music had changed.

 

 

Her sneakers had been exchanged for high heels and her sketchbooks for a minimum wage salary. Her late night movies had turned into dinner and an episode of her favourite anime.

He was on hiatus for the moment and had committed himself to indulgence. So, he linked her social media, smiles as he speaks with her and grins when she jokes.

 

Easy to place talons into soft ground.

 

So he does.

 

After all, this was part of the fun.

 

The game.

 

The ending.

 

So, he plays it well, as he always has.

 

An empathic ear after work, a bouquet of hoodies on her birthday, a sly smirk and casual remark of marriage when the time is right, a brush of fingers across hers when she goes to pick up her bag. All of it small but simple gestures.

 

She smiles, thanks him and follows suit.

 

But, she doesn't let him pay for the meal at the end of the date. She doesn't allow him to carry her bags for her. She doesn't let him keep her up at night talking about romance. She doesn't allow him into her apartment after the third date. She doesn't kiss him.

 

He feels challenged at first, threatened after another five moves.

 

He digs his claws into her work and find her employers to be less than gullible when presented with false deception. He works around it towards her friends, which turned out to be coworkers whom couldn't care less. He tries to nail it down by belittling her.

 

She doesn't distance herself.

 

She smiles, quirks an eyebrow and seems to outmaneuver every comment like a black knight. She doesn't bite back, she doesn't even retort... she shrugs. She smiles.

 

She _smiles_.

 

He stops after a while, as his toils had brought forth no fruits.

 

He feels frustration seeping in.

 

She treats him to fatty tuna one evening, somehow coercing him into finding comfort from a bottle of sake.

 

He regrets it. He's sick to his stomach and she brushes a cool wash-cloth over his face as she coaxes him into bed with a glass of water.

 

Four moves later, he hates it.

 

She doesn't treat him any different from when she started. She still works for a low-paying job. She still wears her make-up the same way. She hadn't been conquered at all. She hadn't even moved her place from the board.

 

_He hates it._

 

And yet, he finds himself smiling when she once replies during work-hours to his text.

 

He laughs when she lights up when he brings her pizza one evening.

 

He finds himself blushing when she makes him soup when he catches a cold.

 

He's surprised to find his fingers intertwined with hers as they walk.

 

He finds himself being conquered piece by piece... and he likes it.

 


End file.
